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Tinto Talks #51 - 19th of February 2025

Welcome to the 51st Tinto Talks, the Happy Wednesday where we give you information about our entirely secret game with the Codename of Project Caesar.

Today we will talk about subjects and how they function in our game


Subjects and their Overlord
In Project Caesar, as it starts at the end of the Medieval Era, and reaches into the Post-Napoleonic World, we have to have a system that works for feudal states and also for grand empires spanning the world. This is simulated by our subject system.

A Subject is any country that is subordinate to an overlord. It typically has limitations on its diplomacy in return for protection in a war. Subjects may also suffer subject taxation, and have a certain percentage of their great power score exacted by their overlord. Additionally, a subject may not become a great power. The exact rules are dependent on the subject type. Subjects have subject loyalty towards their overlord, and a liberty desire - both of which indicate their current stance on their subordination. Any subject may in turn be the overlord of other countries, allowing long chains of Subject-Overlord relationships.

An Overlord is a country that has any number of subjects as its subordinates. In return for protecting each subject in wars, it typically receives subject taxation, and exacts a certain percentage of the subject's great power score. The exact rules are dependent on each subject's subject type. Any Overlord may in turn be the subject of other countries, allowing long chains of Subject-Overlord relationships.


Subject Loyalty
Every subject has a Subject Loyalty towards their overlord. Ranging from 0 to 100, and when a subject has less than 50 subject loyalty towards its overlord, it becomes a Disloyal Subject. When in such a state, it will no longer join the wars of its overlord and cannot be annexed.

There is also the concept of ‘Liberty Desire’, which represents a subject's current drive for independence from its overlord, and it affects subject loyalty. Its value is from -100 to +100, but it has a monthly decay towards 0. The value is also used as a currency in some Subject Interactions.


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The Bretons are loyal.. for now..



Diplomatic Capacity
As we mentioned in earlier Tinto Talks, the cost of having a subject is not a fixed number as in previous games we have made, but depends on many factors, including the type of subject.

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Of course we have nested tooltips to find out detailed information..



Create New Subjects
If you have locations in more than 2 different provinces, you’ll always have the possibility to create a subject of one of your provinces. You can also select from the valid types of subjects that your country can have in that province. After you have selected the type of subject you want, you may, if the type of subject allows it,also pick the character to be the ruler of the new subject.

There are also ways to convince your subject to change from one type of subject to another type, where it would be valid.


Vassal
The most typical type of subject, a vassal oversees its territory on behalf of its overlord, pays vassal fees and joins the military campaigns of its overlord.

Almost all countries can make Vassal Subjects.

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Probably needs to improve and merge some lines here to make tooltip less unwieldy..

Fiefdom
A Fiefdom is a junior title that is the property of its overlord's ruler. This can only be created and maintained by a Monarchy though. There are some drawbacks to it, as it can not be created by diplomatic offers, and does not grant any prestige.

March
A March is a subject country focused on defending our domain, acting as a barrier between their overlord and external threats.

A March pays half the gold that a vassal does and can not be annexed, but the March gets a discipline boost and gets better-lasting forts that are also cheaper.

Colonial Nation
A Colonial Nation is a subject centered around the administration of overseas colonies on behalf of its overlord.

There are two ways to create a colonial nation. First of all, you can make one from a conquered overseas territory, but secondly, and most commonly you have the option to create one directly from when one of your colonial charters finishes.

A Colonial Nation gives up 33% of its trade capacity and trade advantage to their overlord, while also giving up 10% of their manpower and sailors, and pays 20% of their tax to the overlord.

Conquistadors
Conquistadors are the leaders of a private army who have signed contracts with their rulers to explore and conquer certain territories in exchange for the title of Governor, and a share of the new lands and spoils.

This is a unique type of subject that is only available to Catholic countries with the Capital in Iberia, and this advance is available from the Age of Discovery.

A Conquistador can be commissioned by selecting an area in America, and then a character to lead them. It will also require about 2,000 manpower and some gold to start. It will start with preparing in a nearby good port.

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Just a few months…. And then it’s Conquest of Paradise.

Afterwards the Conquistador have gathered enough resources for their expedition they will set sail, and you will hear from them the next time in a few months time, informing you that they have started their activities.

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Let's see what he can do!

This spawns an army-based country in a location in the area, starting with about 2 regiments of conquistadors. They start at war with the owner of the location where they spawn, and will automatically conquer any location they get control over. They also have the capacity to raise levies from the local people, even if it's from a non-accepted culture. If they manage to get to peace or get enough locations they will convert into a colonial nation of yours.


Some other unique subject types we will go into detail on when we talk about countries that can use them in a Tinto Flavor include Appanages, State Banks, Hanseatic Members and more..


Playing as Overlord
Several types of subjects allow the overlord to annex a subject. Annexation is when an overlord completely takes over one of its subjects. The overlord will gain all of the subject's owned locations, and any character not fleeing to other countries.

A disloyal subject can not be annexed though, and the cost of annexation depends on the amount of cities and towns that a subject has, with rural locations having less of an impact.

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Less than 30 years, should be worth it..

There are also plenty of different subject interactions, like giving locations or provinces to your subjects, take land, manpower, gold or sailors from them and much more.

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And of course there are other unique ones..

Playing as Subject
If you play a country that is a subject you have a few tools at your disposal. First of all there are two different cabinet actions that you can use.

Frustrate Annexation
This action uses the administrative ability of the ruler and the cabinet member assigned to the task to slow down annexation.

By hindering their delegates with an archaic constitutional legislature and obstructing them at every turn, we can increase the amount of time it will take for our overlord to annex us.

Sow Disloyalty
This action uses the diplomatic ability of the ruler and the cabinet member assigned to the task to reduce the loyalty to your overlord.

By spreading cruel rumors about our overlord and espousing the benefits of ruling ourselves, we can decrease our own subject loyalty, potentially becoming a disloyal subject.


disloyalty.png

Maybe I need a better cabinet member to do it?

And if you want to become independent there are two ways to do it.

First of all, there is the classic option of just declaring war on your overlord, but that is often not entirely a good idea, especially not if you have a tax base at about 1% of your powerful overlord.

However, the other option in Project Caesar, is to start an independence movement. This is somewhat similar to a coalition in that it is an international organization with a target country. You can invite other countries to join it, including other subjects of the same overlord, and when you have gathered enough strength in your movement, often securing the backing of another powerful country, you can start the war and have a chance at liberty.



Stay tuned for next week we will delve into weather and natural disasters.
 

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In contrast to many others I find the conquistadores as a separate subject just for the Iberians a terrible mechanic. Because what else is it but the crown giving the nobility (the conquistadore) the privelage to create crown colonies where the crown gets its 'fair' share in the profits and a temporary small boost in noble estate loyalty (so there is an incentive to send out further conquistadores. Just create a set of requirements (need to be a kingdom or higher rank) to be able to hand out this privelage etc that as a result makes this privelage available to the Iberians, but also any other nation fulfiling the requirements. That way you can also hand out this privelage from other nations. You can even use the same mechanic to give a privelage to the burgher estate which starts creating private enterprise colonies like the Dutch did with the WIC/VOC. And why should such subjects be limited to the Dutch/Low Countries?
The reason is that the devs probably believe that conquistadors were the direct result of the Reconquista culture that was established in Iberia. During the Reconquista, the kings granted privileges to those that went to the frontier towns to help populate and defend them. For example, the concept of "caballeros villanos" (literally villain knights, but with its original meaning is more like villager knights, since villain comes from village) is uniquely Iberian, and created a class of not nobility that acted like mounted knights and owned land they used on the frontier. The Iberian kingdoms were also constantly creating holy orders to defend the frontier against muslims, there's a reason in the game they start as patrons of many holy orders, unlike most Catholic countries.

If you believe conquistador culture was something that was created because of the legacy of the Reconquista, that created a type of warriors that sought to both enrich themselves and expand Catholicsm, that is something that other countries shouldn't be able to do, since the starting situation of countries is set. You cannot have France retroactively have gone through a Reconquista.

I'm not saying this is a definitive reason, I'm just explaining what I think the reasoning is. Even though the other colonial countries may have used tactics that seemed similar, they had a very different conception of colonialism than the Spanish. The Spanish kings saw the colonies as primarily a way to expand Catholicism. Then the actual conquistadors were on it primarily for the money and privileges they could gain, which is why they often got in conflict with the Crown over the treatment of natives, as the Crown wanted to have the natives turn into new Catholic subjects, while the conquistadors wanted to exploit the natives as much as possible to make as much money as possible. Like with the frontier privileges, the crown had a history of using the prospect of riches and privileges to attract people in order to expand Catholicism, which translated directly into the concept of conquistadors. This is uniquely Iberian, so other countries that don't have the historical circumstances at game start wouldn't have it. Of course, this lead to problems over the treatment of natives between the crown and the new colonial elite, but that's a different story.
 
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Any specific reason why tributaries are not explicitly mentioned and which nations can have tributaries? Historically speaking the Ottomans had a butt load of tributaries, but none in Eu4. I would like to have that.
 
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There are a couple of problems with eu4 subjects that may transfer to PC. Could you describe how it is handled in this game?:

- in eu4 liberty desire is "all or nothing". They are absolutely loyal and helpful when below 50%, and do nothing for you and seek independence when above it. Can this be more fluid, or at least have more steps? Like: over 70-80 loyalty - can be annexed, over 40-50 loyalty - help in wars and pay you, below 20-30 - seeks independence; or something like this

- in eu4 "support independence" is very binary. Once subjects gets the support only war can break it (independence war, or dragging the subject to a war against its supporter). Are there are possible ways to disolve "independence movements" diplomatically? Like make your subject loyal again, or convince countries supporting their independence to stop if they don't hate you

- does the annexation speed and progress depends on subject loyalty? It would make sense that bearly loyal subjects are not are integrated slower than super loyal ones. Same with. Subjects far away

- in eu4 the integration progress is completely lost if a vassal declares independence war, even if it was 99% (what is really not that hard to happen, if they become disloyal for 1 month, get independence support and declare fast). I understand that lose of integration progress makes sense if the integrated subject becomes disloyal below integration level or declares the war but is it "all lost" or decay over time?

- in eu4 colonial nations are very inflexible: They are creatures automatically in provinces predetermined in their colonial region, can't be devided, land can't be transferred between different CN (except in a rare event) and they can't be seized or annexed. I would strongly advocate for an option to be able to annex any subject type that can be manually created, including colonial nation. Creating a colonial nation is essentially creating a more autonomous administrative body to govern colonised land - why can't you change your own administration? Like take over them, divide them or transfer their territories between each other? It would require high loyalty, be costly and take time, but should be possible. Because only because you created a CN overseas 300 years ago (when you could not control the land there) doesn't mean you can't now revoke their autonomy now (when you are able to have control there).

- in eu4 there is a system of objectives (mark a province for ally or subject to siege) and subject orders (passive, defensive, agressive, siege, attach). will this be more developed? like being able to tell subject to guard a certain land or take over subject army during the war?

Edit: i forgot

- in eu4 in most cases your can't prevent your subjects from joining your wars (except only scutaged vassals). All there be an option for your subjects not to join your wars?
 
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in eu4 colonial nations are very inflexible: They are creatures automatically in provinces predetermined in their colonial region, can't be devided, land can't be transferred between different CN (except in a rare event) and they can't be seized or annexed. I would strongly advocate for an option to be able to annex any subject type that can be manually created, including colonial nation. Creating a colonial nation is essentially creating a more autonomous administrative body to govern colonised land - why can't you change your own administration? Like take over them, divide them or transfer their territories between each other? It would require high loyalty, be costly and take time, but should be possible. Because only because you created a CN overseas 300 years ago (when you could not control the land there) doesn't mean you can't now revoke their autonomy now (when you are able to have control there).

Adding to this, I don't like how CNs are called to every single one of your wars so they sail all the way from north america to india only to get stuck there. It also leads to instability because of high war exhaustion.
 
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Conquistadors sound fun and I love the army-based country mechanic but the descriptions also make me concerned they could end up a bit overpowered. Are there any restrictions in place beyond the possibility of them losing the war? You state that conquistadors start at war with the owner of a given location. Does that mean conquistadors can only target settled states (and maybe SOPs)? Because if so, that seems like the best option, since conquistadors often had the easiest time conquering settled states (i.e. the Aztecs and Inca) while struggling greatly with less organized societies (i.e. the Comanche, Apache, Mapuche, etc. all retaining independence until the very end of the game).

If they can go anywhere I worry given the already low populations you'd see, for instance, Spanish Texas in the early 1500s every game even though the first Spanish settlement didn't begin until the 1690s, or Spain regularly controlling the entire eastern seaboard of North America before Britain or France can get a chance to go across the Atlantic. I just really hope that it won't lead to a repeat of EU4 where the Americas are fully colonized by ~1600, despite a huge amount of the Americas (including almost all of the modern US/Canada) still being uncolonized by that point and even by the end of the game. It should definitely be hard to stay independent as a native SOP but it shouldn't be impossible given how many survived to 1837 irl or very nearly did.
AI Colonization was ridiculously fast in EU4. Forget about the Americas, every game has colonial nations forming in Australia in 1600's.
 
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Secondly on annexation, I really hoped PC was going to take a different route than EU4, especially after seeing how cool, historical and engaging the junior partner integration mechanics are. Why isn't there a mechanic as good for annexations even though they are pobably going to be as common if not a lot more common than junior partner integrations during a campaign ?

The way I see it, PC should really take inspiration from CK where annexation necessarily means a destitution of some kind. Is there a single example of a vassal in history being annexed simply because the overlord really "worked at it" for a long time until the vassal finally said "ok I gess you can have my lands" ? Or even an example of a vassal being annexed while in very good terms with their overlord ?

Annexation should almost always be a form of destitution by the ruler on the vassal. Here you could have brought a whole lot of other PC mechanics, for example, you could use your spy network to try to prove your vassals dissloyalty or that their hold on their land is somehow illegal (which would be especially easy if your vassal has a weak legitimacy and/or has been at war against you in the past), which would then give you an option to confiscate the territories, which could then trigger a war with your vassal depending on its power (much like in CK)

You could also imagine an option to simply buy all the lands or some lands of your vassals, which the vassal would be even more enclined to accept if they are emdebted

There could also be an option to reach out to your vassal's estates and/or for them to be able to reach to you if they are extremely disloyal and demand the overlord to be annexed, which could result in annexation, failure of annexation and even a civil war in your vassal depending on the influence of the estate that wants to be annexed. The overlord could even give guarantees to the vassal's disloyal estate in exchange for annexation (kinda like the union parliement in which you can give guarantees to your partner's estates)

Of course, there would also be the option of desperatly trying to turn your vassal into a dominion (which is also a kinda CK mechanic), although we don't know much about how dominions are handled for now

In a nutshell, annexation should not be a "risk free" and "diplomatic only" enterprise that requires very good relationships with the vassal, which doesn't reflect reality at all and results in a very passive gameplay ; but should rather be a risky move that overlords can make only under certain circumstances.

This leads to 2 big changes. Firstly, as an overlord, the player won't have to simply wait for ten years and have good relationships with their vassals fo then to be able to annex the vassal, which take time during which you barely give attention to the annexation process. The player would now have to be vigilant about the status of their vassals : how are their finances, their legitimacy, the loyalty of their estate, the matter of succession... (which could be brought to the player's attention with pop ups to avoid too much tedium/micro). Players would also have to be ready to potentially fight a war to annex their vassal, which seems to me much more engaging than simply "wait 5 years and sit back while vassal gets annexed"
Secondly, as a vassal, the player would not have to simply make sure they have a bad relationship with their overlord (which is kinda historically counter intuitive) but would have to make sure that they do not end up in a situation in which an annexation can happen, which means having to make extra sure that you're country doesn't end up in a weak place (which I think is a lot more immersive and closer to how a vassal that doesn't want to be annexed and doesn't want either to be fully independant would act)
I feel like your points here are so interesting that they deserve their own thread.
 
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Adding to this, I don't like how CNs are called to every single one of your wars so they sail all the way from north america to india only to get stuck there. It also leads to instability because of high war exhaustion.
yes, i agree. particularry that you can scutage a vassal (a subject that is ususally near you) but you can't prevent call a CN into the war, even if it's a far away overseas subject that can really do anything in the war.
 
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Love all the interactions with subjects!

Some questions:

Will be possible to establish Vice-royalties instead of Colonies (even if is just for flavor) ?

Will be possible mix two colonies together or restructure the colonies ? I used to hate in EU4 when you got two Floridas or Mexicos ,when you annex a vassal with a colonial nation.

Thanks!
 
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Can subjects be in IOs independently from their overlords? Most particularly, can they form their own PUs (Prussia comes to mind)?

Second question is if an overlord can interact in any way with subjects of subjects (perhaps with an unlock via a specific advancement/policy/government reform/etc.)?
 
The Conquistadors seem to be the answer to "how do we allow Europeans do conquer the Americas, without transporting your entire army". It seems like a good system, better modelling the coalition the Spanish founded against the Aztecs, rather than a mythic 3000 man army personally destroying the largest city in western hemisphere because iron (just don't look at the quarter million Indian soldiers allied to the Spanish behind the curtain). Does recruiting native levies make them magically better than they would be if they were recruited by a native country? How feasible would it be to equip them at the same or better than the Aztec armies?
 
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I feel like having Conquistadors be locked to Catholics makes it very hard for a Andalusian player to colonize central America. Is the intention that if there is no Catholic Iberia, Central America will be "safe" until the colonial nations develop enough to have a similar sized army. Because with the difficulties of transporting, supplying, and replenishing troops, it seems it will be very difficult to colonize Mexico without local levies.
 
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The reason is that the devs probably believe that conquistadors were the direct result of the Reconquista culture that was established in Iberia. During the Reconquista, the kings granted privileges to those that went to the frontier towns to help populate and defend them. For example, the concept of "caballeros villanos" (literally villain knights, but with its original meaning is more like villager knights, since villain comes from village) is uniquely Iberian, and created a class of not nobility that acted like mounted knights and owned land they used on the frontier. The Iberian kingdoms were also constantly creating holy orders to defend the frontier against muslims, there's a reason in the game they start as patrons of many holy orders, unlike most Catholic countries.

If you believe conquistador culture was something that was created because of the legacy of the Reconquista, that created a type of warriors that sought to both enrich themselves and expand Catholicsm, that is something that other countries shouldn't be able to do, since the starting situation of countries is set. You cannot have France retroactively have gone through a Reconquista.

I'm not saying this is a definitive reason, I'm just explaining what I think the reasoning is. Even though the other colonial countries may have used tactics that seemed similar, they had a very different conception of colonialism than the Spanish. The Spanish kings saw the colonies as primarily a way to expand Catholicism. Then the actual conquistadors were on it primarily for the money and privileges they could gain, which is why they often got in conflict with the Crown over the treatment of natives, as the Crown wanted to have the natives turn into new Catholic subjects, while the conquistadors wanted to exploit the natives as much as possible to make as much money as possible. Like with the frontier privileges, the crown had a history of using the prospect of riches and privileges to attract people in order to expand Catholicism, which translated directly into the concept of conquistadors. This is uniquely Iberian, so other countries that don't have the historical circumstances at game start wouldn't have it. Of course, this lead to problems over the treatment of natives between the crown and the new colonial elite, but that's a different story.
Good points. My only gripe with this is from a gameplay prespective - I don't think it's wise to lock different mechanics of colonization for specific countries, because it would mean that for the majority of countries there will only be barebones mechanics remaining. I am worried that colonization will end up being like it was in EU4 - not varied, not fun, not engaging, and much quicker than it should be. To counteract this we need to have a variety of methods each country can use to colonize. And I think that if we lock up such methods it's better to lock them behind Societal Values for better gameplay value. Maybe, for example, aside from being Iberian you could also unlock Conquistadors by being a colonizer who is Belligerent/Offensive enough?

In a completely different example, the Dutch and English often colonized by granting charter rights to public stock companies. It was the Virginia companies (there were two) that started colonizing North America, and obviously there were the Dutch and English West Indies and East Indies trading companies, and many more, and they enjoyed a great deal of independence. If the devs are willing to lock Conquistadors for just Iberians I could see them locking charter companies for just the English and Dutch. But wouldn't it be much better if any colonizer country whose Free Trade/Capital Economy values were high enough could unlock that?

It's not that I am against country-specific flavor, not at all. But if a mechanic is useful and important enough it should be available generically, and specific countries should only get buffs to such mechanics instead of being the only ones allowed to use them.
 
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Wouldn't it be better if the opinion loss due to integrating a subject scaled with the subject's size and importance - the French subjects would be angrier if the crown were to integrate Burgundy than L'Isle Jourdain?
 
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Not really keen on both ideas:
- Subject sound kind of lacking, let's hope for more features to be revealed, I could be cool to have internal factions, dietas and Power Groups special powers like in Victoria
- Why ONLY conquistadores? The same mechanic can be applied to corsairs (you hire them to arrass your enemies in war and then once at peace you can repay them in gold or land) or for internal revolts: think of Gil Albornoz, he pacified central Italy for the Papacy and then became the de facto ruler of the region.
 
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